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millage rate of at least 14 mills to prevent the loss of state equalization grant funding. According to Superintendent Barry Waller, the reassessment of property values has caused the rollback millage rate, which is required by the state of Georgia to avoid a tax increase, to fall below the required 14 mills to receive the state equalization grant. Forfeiting that grant would cause the school to lose approximately $2.3 million of federal funding annually.

“Therefore, the Toombs County Board of Education proposes to decrease the 2022 millage rate by 0.37 mills and adopt the minimum millage rate of 14.00 mills required to receive state equalization funding,” Waller commented on behalf of the Board. “The Toombs County Board of Education would like our property taxpayers to understand that unless your property has been reassessed (taxable value increased) during the year, then you will not see a tax increase.”

When the total digest of taxable property is prepared, Georgia Law requires that a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year's new digest that last year's millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred. The budget tentatively adopted by the Toombs County Board of Education requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate; therefore, before the Toombs County Board of Education may set a final millage rate, Georgia Law requires that three public hearings be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on this increase.

All concerned citizens are invited to the public hearings on this tax increase to be held at the Toombs County High School, 500 Bulldog Road, Lyons, Georgia on September 7, 2023 at 5:30 p.m. and September 14, 2023 at 8:15 a.m. and 6:05 p.m.